This Week: MEMX, Sifma, Bloomberg, State Street, Digiterre, Infosys

BlackRock, Wells Fargo, Others Pump $65M into MEMX

Startup equity exchange Members Exchange (MEMX) has raised more than $65 million in a financing round that adds BlackRock, Wells Fargo, Flow Traders, Manikay Partners, and Williams Trading as new investors ion the exchange. This latest investment brings the number of firms invested in MEMX to 13, which have collectively poured more than $135 million overall into the platform ahead of a launch planned for later this year. As a result of its investment, BlackRock gains a seat on MEMX’s board.

Sifma Reaches Deal on CAT Reporting

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (Sifma) said this week that broker-dealers and self-regulatory organizations (SROs), such as exchanges, had reached an agreement in the ongoing dispute over the language making up the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) reporter agreement.

On Wednesday, SROs said they would remove language from the agreement that limited SRO liability from potential data breaches, reported Reuters.

Sifma had petitioned the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) to suspend the requirement that brokers sign the agreement—which protects SROs from liability in the event of data breaches, and opens up sensitive data—before reporting firms begin submitting mandated data.

As WatersTechnology first reported in December, many large broker-dealers had refused to sign the agreement due to its language, despite being required to sign up in order to gain access to the testing environment.

After years of delays, key CAT deadlines were again pushed back twice during the ongoing outbreak of Covid-19. On March 17, the SEC issued a no-action letter lasting through May 20, though it could be extended. The production go-live date for large broker-dealers and small OATS reporters was extended to June 22, from originally planned April 20. (OATS, the Order Audit Trail System, is the precursor to the CAT.)

Bloomberg Debuts Self-Service Data Mart

Bloomberg has created a click-to-buy online data marketplace within its Enterprise Access Point data web portal that allows clients of its Data License service to search and immediately access data from Bloomberg and its third-party partners.

New features include Data Marketplace, which provides click-to-buy capabilities for users to purchase data directly, speeding up the time taken before they can use the data in production; and Dataset Creator, which allows business analysts and developers to create and subscribe to custom, machine-readable datasets.

Officials say the move is in response to demand from firms to find and integrate more complex data more easily, citing demand from quantitative analysts and researchers who need application-ready data.

State Street, Coremont Ally for Outsourced Hedge Fund Servicing

Boston-based custodian State Street and London-based buy-side technology provider Coremont have partnered to create a fully integrated outsourced service to cover hedge fund managers’ front-, middle-, and back-office operations, by combining State Street’s asset servicing and administration capabilities with Coremont’s portfolio management analytics and support. Coremont, which was spun out of absolute return investment manager Brevan Howard in 2018, provides web-based portfolio management tools, pricing models and analytics to support all investment management requirements across all asset classes. Officials say the solution will provide hedge fund clients with a single, consolidated set of records to serve portfolio managers and administrators, to increase transparency and reduce errors.

Digiterre Bows DataMax Big Data Analytics Platform

UK-based software and data engineering consultancy Digiterre has launched a Big Data analysis platform, DataMax, which allows firms to quickly conduct real-time analysis of varying types of large and complex transactional and operational datasets. Officials say the on-premise or cloud-deployed offering helps firms with siloed data operations to face challenges around the quality, volume, and timeliness of data analytics and reporting, such as for improving trading and portfolio management performance, or for meeting regulatory reporting requirements, such as those of Mifid 2.

Infosys, NICE Actimize Agree Anti-Crime Software Reseller Deal

Indian technology and consulting giant Infosys has expanded a partnership with NICE Actimize that allows it to resell NICE’s regulatory and compliance software to clients worldwide as on-premise or cloud-delivered services, enabling NICE to rapidly expand its network of financial crime solutions with enhanced customer support, while enabling Infosys to respond to growing client demand for services to future-proof their operations against emerging digital threats faster and cheaper. The combined offering will include an integrated suite of accelerators, dubbed Infosys Actimize Digital Suite that reduce time to market and increase predictability of implementations, which—along with cloud delivery—will help reduce cost of ownership, officials say.